The royal conservatism of her gracious Majesty

This jogs my memory to notice the royal conservatism of her gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra, who follows trend at a dignified distance, lending her candy private enchantment to our view of her antedated hairstyle, with its raised curls over her forehead pointing barely to the centre of the brow. Royalty not seeks to guide fashions, nor, certainly, to observe them, the one exceptions to the rule of generality being the royal girls of the homes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and of Connaught, who all present a most pleasant appreciation of, and a changing into sympathy with, each vagary of La Mode. But our supreme Royalty takes curiosity within the nationwide side of the affairs of costume, and bestows a lot private hassle in arousing loyalty in the direction of Irish poplins, British-made silks, the tweed industries of Eire and Scotland and Wales, and the lace manufactures of Devonshire and Bucks and Nottingham.

The shirt and the teagown of to-day date their inception from the final century, however the beneficent legislation of evolution concedes them the grace of novelty, even whereas dogma tediously reiterates “There’s nothing new underneath the solar.”

In costume the Victorian period

In costume the Victorian period was “ The whole lot- arian,” welcoming and discarding all shapes and types of clothes, and gathering within the fashions from all ages, adopting with delicate enthusiasm and moderated transport probably the most sleek and probably the most graceless, and impartially bestowing consideration upon the slashed and puffed sleeves of the Tudors, the lace collar and extensive ruff of the Stuarts, the Watteau costume, re-christened “Dolly Varden,” the brief waists of the Empire, the complete coats and enormous revers of the Directoire, and the lengthy plumes and sensible buckles of the seventeenth century. An injustice to the phrase aesthetic was dedicated by the followers of a trend which cried aloud for unhappy colors, sadder shapes, and the saddest untidiness ; and amongst the ridiculous errors could also be written down a polonaise costume looping up in surprising locations, flounced and furbelowed with out bounds of purpose, whereas extending itself from the waist over an immense bustle. There’s satisfaction in remembering the response which occurred after this in favour of the eelskin costume, setting as tightly as was handy from neck to heel, when the woven jersey-bodice had a brief spell of patronage, however, proving itself suavely unsympathetic in its remedy of any however the excellent determine, lapsed speedily into disuse. About 1882 the questionable charms of the bustle reasserted themselves, and the Watteau type of frock exercised some useful affect over the waist of its truthful wearer.